


Inked

by bibbidibabbidanielbo



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Mafia AU, Soulmates AU, but still cute nerd, he's a nerd and a genius as usual, law student taehyun, mafia member yeonjun, unconventional soulmates beliefs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibbidibabbidanielbo/pseuds/bibbidibabbidanielbo
Summary: All Taehyun wanted at 3 in the morning was to not fail his Environmental Law assignment, not to meet a blond stranger with heterochromia red and blue eyes who told him it was his fault they were both sentenced to death the moment Taehyun was just trying to rescue him from passing out cold in the middle of a street.=========Or, another soulmate story involving a lethargic law student and a rule-breaking mafia member.
Relationships: Choi Yeonjun/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 12
Kudos: 64





	Inked

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if mafia can be crossed over with soulmates au or not but I'm totally bullshitting my way through this just because I love the idea of cool and rough Yeonjun being whipped over the smart, nerdy Taehyun. Heh.

“Oh God, not now please,” he pleaded, watching miserably as the very last piece of his 10-pages long assignment slipped through his Canon printer with the ink faded in the faintest black across the paper.

Taehyun picked it up, trying to make out the words and even as his eyes squinted hard upon the paragraph, he still ended up with nothing readable. The law student hissed through gritted teeth, eyes jumped up to a clock upon the wall.

3.45 am, lethargy heavy in his bones and his dear printer void of ink at the most convenient time. Ever.

_Great_ , Taehyun thought, feeling the urge to snort as much as he wanted to curse at himself, and possibly bang his head on his study table because how can he be so stupid? So, so unbelievably _stupid_ that he didn’t bother to check on the ink percentage before eagerly getting on with his Environmental Law assignment. Oh yeah, that was because he had been dreading to finish this piece of hell to the very last minute.

Taehyun _despised_ Environmental Law, with passion.

Completing the assignments from world’s most boring subject would be the last on his good-student’s checklist and so that was how he found himself burning the night oil, bullshitting his way through the 10-pages—mind you, _ten_ —article and eventually getting fucked by his printer. He calculated swiftly in his head if it’d be possible to wait until the only stationary store in campus to open sharp at 10 am tomorrow and Taehyun would be their very first proud customer rushing in to purchase printer cartridge.

On second thought, however, he concluded such idea won’t be practical because guess what? Mr. Son demanded the hard copy of his troublesome assignment to be deposited into the clear folder in front of his office door latest by 8 am on the dot the next day.

And the store only will be opened two hours later, and now Taehyun had only approximately about 4 hours left to get the assignment readily printed. Why did it even have to be in hard copy? Who even needed anything hard here in the middle of world pandemic where every form of physical touch should be prohibited and not to mention online assignment made it even safer and easier? Mr. Son—his professor—apparently needed it.

Taehyun banged his forehead for real against the table this time.

He considered his options:

  1. Wake his roommate up and ask to borrow his printer instead. Only Hueningkai was already so deep in his sleep. He won’t be so thrilled to be awakened just to let Taehyun borrow the printer he never had when Hueningkai had been using _Taehyun’s_ printer along the whole months they were sharing this dorm.
  2. Try to knock on the doors of their neighbors and pray one of them would own the machine. Only nobody occupied the dorm at the moment since Taehyun and Hueningkai were sharing the floor with first year students, and most of them had been sent back to their respective hometown ever since the outbreak of the virus, leaving only the seniors to be stuck here because hey, Corona or not, last year seniors still needed to graduate and move on with their life. Duh.
  3. Wait until tomorrow morning and graciously email his professor something along the line of ‘ _my deepest apologies, sir. But I might need to turn in the assignment two hours late because my printer loves to die at the moment I need it the most. Can you please, consider not to deduce my mark? Or worse make me fail this subject I wouldn’t dream of retaking? Ever?’_
  4. Or he can open his Instagram account, just to post a story: _rough night, I’m failing the subject I hate the most so adios, world : )_



He won’t make it at this point. He will lose the carry mark he had been so painstakingly collected along the semester with the sole purpose to pass this class. His professor won’t accept such incompetent reason to generously let him off the hook this time unless he—

Taehyun sat back up on the chair, blinking away the drowsy black spots from his eyes, gears in his brain running quick.

—unless he snuck out of the campus and ran all the way down to the back streets two blocks from his dorm to buy the goddamn cartridge from that one 24/7 convenience store.

_Huh_ , genius.

Kang Taehyun always knew it he was born a genius.

All his life, he was a genius and an obedient student who would _never_ rebel against the rules, especially if the rule of prohibiting them from going out of the campus was made to protect the students from the virus. Yet in this moment where he was tittering between desperation and sleepiness, Taehyun could care less about his reputation as model student. To get it over with the assignment was his uttermost priority right now and without even informing Hueningkai who was still happily snoring on his bed, Taehyun grabbed his jacket, pocketed his wallet and phone and slammed the door close without minding if it would wake his roommate up because it won’t. Hueningkai can sleep through earthquake, trust him.

And so that was how Taehyun found himself climbing over the back gates of the campus, panting underneath the hoodie that was covering his face yet never slowed down even as he had cornered down to the route that would lead him towards the store.

About 10 minutes after, Taehyun can finally sigh in relief when a couple of cartridges—black and color—were safely in his palms. His smile was polite and genuinely relieved when he thanked the cashier but the late-night worker couldn’t be bothered to return the decency as he was too busy smoking cigar to keep himself awake, only dismissing Taehyun with a brief nod.

No matter, Taehyun let it slide and walked out of the store with happy skips in his steps. Now that he got the ultimate solution to his problem, Taehyun finally took his time to take in his surroundings. As he walked, his eyes noticed how dead the street was—dark with nothing but close shops along the row. That was given, considering most stores were still restricted from running business, only some distant barks and yips from the stray dogs were heard breaking through the night breeze.

Taehyun tightened his hoodie, wrapping his arms around himself and thinking it was wise to quicken his pace since the chill and the loneliness of the night had starting to tease his nerves. Yet as he looked up from his feet to the road ahead, Taehyun found his steps flattered to a stop instead of rushing forward.

His eyes narrowed, trying to convince himself it wasn’t a body of a man that he saw lying motionless there right in the middle of the street.

Taehyun shook his head, rubbing the heels of his palms to his eyes to make sure his sight wasn’t kidding him and stared again, with much bigger eyes this time (as if his eyes weren’t big enough) and _yes_ , that was unmistakably a _body_.

What the fuck.

Taehyun considered his options:

  1. Run away and ignore the body, act as if he didn’t see it in the first place. But in order to do so, he will need to run pass the body. What if it would come alive when he was nearby? What if a hand caught him around his ankle and tripped him like in one of those horror movies he had watched before?
  2. Run back into the convenience store and ask the cashier there to help him. But what if this was a prank or _worse_ , by the time he got back here with the cashier, the body already mysteriously gone? Again, like in one of those horror movies?
  3. He can call 911 and ask for help. That would be the most logical thing to do now because they were in the middle of pandemic. He wasn’t allowed to randomly touch a stranger even if they looked like they were in dire need of help. Right?



Yeah. The third option was the wisest, Taehyun decided as he frantically pulled out his phone and about to unlock the screen when a loud bark startled him and Taehyun gasped in surprise the moment a stray dog trudged too close to the body, stopping right next to it and beginning to…sniff it.

_Oh hell no_ , Taehyun huffed and he was rushing forward to them even before he could reconsider other options.

“Go, go! Shoosh! Leave it alone!” Taehyun chased the dog away with the wave of his plastic bag, the dog responded with another sudden bark that caused Taehyun to shudder and reverse a step back but other than that, the dog surrendered, leaving to the opposite way as soon as it turned its tail on Taehyun.

He was about to let out a sigh when he realized…he was exactly right next to the body now.

Taehyun felt the grip upon his phone tighten, contemplating between continue to make the call or finally pay the body a look. He didn’t know what he would encounter, he would be lying if he thought he wasn’t a bit scared and he was even way too prideful to admit that. But above all judgments, he was a law student.

And he had spent time long enough in Criminal Law classes to envision he would come face to face with this kind of bizarre, critical situation sooner or later in his life. So with a sharp inhale to steady his nerves, Taehyun tilted his head down and risked a look.

It was a boy, face not much older than him with wind-tousled golden blond hair, eyes shut and a few bleeding cuts all over his face—one by the corner of his plush lips, one over the slope of his nose and some more down the side of his sweaty face.

Taehyun forgot to breathe.

All he knew next was he already crouching down next to the stranger with his hands shakily taking off his hoodie to cover the boy’s chest right before he could secure a hold on his shoulders. Taehyun gave him a gentle shook, face twisted with deep concern.

“Hel—hello? Mister, hey, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Judging from all the cuts, he was clearly far from okay. Taehyun ran a finger down his nose and was partly relieved to find him still breathing despite heavily. He was clearly injured and fainted out cold, he needed medical care more than Taehyun was equipped so with a hand still holding him on the shoulder, Taehyun snatched his phone back up with another hand, “Hold on. I’ll get us some help.”

He was interrupted from dialing second time that night when a sharp hiss pierced through his ears and next he was tackled down to the ground.

Taehyun didn’t even make it to let out a scream. The sound bubbling right at the tip of his tongue yet all he heard was his phone shattering down somewhere on the road and his mouth was already covered with a palm while his whole body was pinned down by a weight right above his hips.

Taehyun tried to fight, trashing around to get his legs to even move and knock off the weight restraining him yet when he snapped his eyes open, Taehyun was struck to see the face of the boy he found lying unconscious seconds before was now staring right upon him.

Gone all shut eyes, because now only hooded gaze was looking down at him, sharp irises were shining bright red and blue as Taehyun blinked back up at him, unable to formulate anything rational now in his head.

One time he was trying to save an injured body, but now he was attacked by the said body.

Taehyun knew it he should have risked the first option while he got the chance before.

Run away was always the best option when caught in unthinkable situation like now.

Yet here he was, lying flat over the pavement with blond stranger above him looking like he was ready to eat him alive. Taehyun inhaled sharply and struggled again to push him off only for the boy to clamp his palm harder onto his face, causing Taehyun to choke on his strained shout and breath.

“Shut the fuck up and stop moving if you wanna stay alive,” the boy above him spoke for the first time, rough edges clear in his deep voice.

Taehyun was sure no matter how he reacted now, his life was already in danger but he somehow found himself succumbing to that command, face sagging under the boy’s palm while his blue and red eyes gave their surroundings a brief scan.

“I can’t leave you here now that they might have seen you.” _They? Who? And please, please, leave me alone!_

The boy threw him another look and before Taehyun could even catch his breath as soon as his mouth was released, Taehyun felt his body was snatched up by the collar and he was harshly dragged away from the road.

“Wait—wait!” He pleaded uselessly but the blond boy was too strong, too tall now that they both were up and running towards the direction Taehyun knew would fuck up his whole life from now on.

Yet he was a fighter, and no matter how shocked he was, he wasn’t going to let himself being easily kidnapped this way so with a forceful huff, Taehyun tried to kick him on the back of his knees only for the boy to catch his movement a tad faster and he swung Taehyun backward until he was thrown off to the side road.

He hissed while Taehyun struggled to breathe and stand up again.

“I told you to shut the fuck up, right? This is your fault! Do you want us both to die now?”

“What?!” Taehyun was far from scared or panicked, he was _furious_ now. “How could any of this be _my_ fault? I’m just tryna help you but you—”

“Shut up and follow me quick,” the boy cut him over and snatched Taehyun up by his collar once again. Taehyun grunted in his stubborn attempt to push him away.

“Ugh—let go of me! I’m not coming with you!”

“Yes, you are! Or we’ll both die!”

“But I don’t even know who you are, you creep!” The shout barely made it through his mouth when Taehyun felt his back make contact with a nearest wall and suddenly the blond boy was up in his face, warm raged breath gracing the skin of his cheeks.

“Yeonjun.” It took Taehyun a while in the midst of his frantic huff and puff to figure out he was informing his name. “I’m Yeonjun, and I need you to come with me quietly now if you don’t wish to die tonight.”


End file.
